It's not really like me to jump ahead in a series if I can avoid it, but I'm willing to make an exception in some cases, particularly when context isn't important. I still plan on playing
The Witcher 3 one of these days and I'm not sure I necessarily have the patience to play through the first two games, even though I do own them on Steam. It's surprising that I decided to play
Darksiders II: Deathinitive Edition before finishing the first game. I'd very briefly played the first title for PC a few years back and didn't dislike it, but as so often seems to be the case, I became distracted and moved on to other titles.
Based on what I've heard over the years about
Darksiders, the first of the series is essentially a Western
Zelda game with a big emphasis on exploration and puzzle solving. The second game definitely doesn't ditch those elements but ramps up the focus on action pretty considerably. The combat is honestly pretty similar to the classic
God of War games, which doesn't really bother me because I do think those games are fun.
Darksiders II feels very much like a game stitched together from very clear influences and as a result doesn't bring anything unique to the table. The whole "four horsemen of the apocalypse" idea seems a little played out, too. At the end of the day, it's a generic game but a pretty well-made one that I don't regret playing at all. The recent
news regarding THQ Nordic makes me want to try the other games in that series considerably less, however.
I also finally got around to finishing
Bravely Second: End Layer in January, having taken an extended break from
Bravely after the first game's doozy of an ending.
Bravely Second doesn't have nearly as frustrating a conclusion, but the game is still not quite what I want it to be. I can't call the characters bad but I don't personally find them interesting or memorable and at the same time nothing about the plot ever struck me as particularly notable. It is a game that I only wanted to play because of the combat and job systems. It does both of these things well but even there I'm frustrated by the endless grind of leveling up the various job classes available in the game.
What I remember most about
Bravely Second is that it has some really wild and interesting classes to choose from. There's a class that specializes in cat-themed magic, for instance, a patissier, and even a class that can wield four weapons at once. This is all really silly and a ton of fun. The job system is definitely what made the game worth playing for me, but the combat still managed to disappoint me in a lot of ways. Although the
Bravely mechanic of storing up and expending turns is still effective, I'm often frustrated by how little strategy you can employ in boss encounters. I can't help but think of
Etrian Odyssey where it's frequently necessary to debuff or inflict ailments on bosses.
Bravely is more about finding the most efficient way to deal tremendous amounts of damage in one all-or-nothing turn. That's fun in its own way, but I wish it wasn't the only way to go.
Metronomicon: Slay the Dance Floor is a rhythm-based RPG that strikes me as a variant of what
Theatrhythm Final Fantasy was doing, but better.
Theatrhythm was a good game because of its music, but its RPG elements were totally ancillary to the experience and almost never affected the outcome of the song you were playing. In
Metronomicon, not only do you need to make sure you're hitting the correct notes at the correct time, but you also need to micromanage the actions of your party members by continuously changing lanes.
If there's anything about
Metronomicon that I didn't like, it's only that I wanted more. I wanted more songs, more classes, and more spells to use in combat. The core design of the game is really good and I'd like to see that go further. I'm hoping that
Metronomicon is the sign of a trend of games that mix rhythm gameplay with other genres. We already have
Crypt of the Necrodancer as an example of rhythm mixed with roguelike. I know there are more out there that I'm not aware of!
Finally, the last game I finished in January 2018
Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story. I remember when I played it originally way back when it came out for Nintendo DS, I lost interest about 10 hours into the game. Many years later, I came to dismiss it as a mediocre entry in the series because I'd heard a lot of feedback online that the series sort of started to go downhill. I'm sad that it took me so long to get back to this one because I couldn't disagree more with that sentiment, at least in the case of this game.
Bowser's Inside Story is incredibly charming and easily captures the humor and fun from
Superstar Saga and honestly eclipses
Partners in Time in quality. There's plenty of variety in gameplay modes whether you're traversing the passageways inside Bowser's massive body, controlling Bowser himself, or even participating in mini-game like moments where Bowser might lay siege to a castle.
The standard combat is as solid as ever with the series' traditional timing-centric turn-based gameplay. It's funny that a remake of this game came out not too long after I decided to revisit the original game, but since it's been so recent, I doubt I'm going to really try that one out. However, I'm really interested in trying
Dream Team and
Paper Jam because maybe the online reaction I've heard isn't going to resonate with my own personal experience. There's always something to enjoy in these games, but at least in the case of
Bowser's Inside Story, there's not really anything bad I can say about it at all.
